BSAVE and BLOAD are commands in many varieties of the BASIC programming language. BSAVE copies

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to a

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, and BLOAD copies the contents of the file to RAM. The term "BSAVE image" could mean any of various raw image formats of

video display controller A video display controller or VDC (also called a display engine or display interface) is an integrated circuit which is the main component in a video-signal generator, a device responsible for the production of a TV video signal in a computing ...

s, or more generally any file containing the raw contents of a section of memory. Some platforms provided a BRUN command that, after loading the file into memory, would immediately attempt to

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it as

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. There is no file compression, and therefore these files load very quickly and without much programming when displayed in native mode. BSAVE files were in general use as a file format when the IBM PC was introduced. It was also in general use on the Apple II in the same time period. Although the commands were available on the

Commodore PET The Commodore PET is a line of personal computers produced starting in 1977 by Commodore International. A single all-in-one case combines a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, Commodore BASIC in read-only memory, keyboard, monochrome monitor, ...

line, they were removed from the later (and more popular) Commodore 64 and VIC-20 computers. In 1985 the Commodore 128 was released with

Commodore BASIC Commodore BASIC, also known as PET BASIC or CBM-BASIC, is the dialect of the BASIC programming language used in Commodore International's 8-bit home computer line, stretching from the PET of 1977 to the C128 of 1985. The core is based on 6502 ...

version 6.9 which restored the BSAVE and BLOAD commands.

Origin

Some versions of BASIC for home computers in the late 1970s and early 1980s include the command BSAVE (for "Binary Save") and the complementary BLOAD ("Binary Load"). Using the BSAVE command, a block of memory at a given address with a specified length can be written to disk as a file. This file can then be reloaded into memory via BLOAD. Microsoft produced the BASIC interpreters that were bundled with the Apple II (1977),

(1977), and IBM PC (1981) which included BSAVE and BLOAD. A BSAVE command is also part of

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...

's ''MSX-DOS2 Tools'' for

MSX-DOS MSX-DOS is a discontinued disk operating system developed by Microsoft for the 8-bit home computer standard MSX, and is a cross between MS-DOS 1.25 and CP/M-80 2. MSX-DOS MSX-DOS and the extended BASIC with 3½-inch floppy disk supp ...

version 2.MSX-DOS2 Tools User's Manual by ASCII Corporation
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ColorBASIC

On the

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's ColorBASIC, those were named SAVEM and LOADM instead, with the M referring to machine code, showing that the primary intent was to load programs rather than data; the use of the B prefix to refer to binary indicates a broader view of the possible uses of the command. ColorBASIC uses a different format than GWBASIC. LOADM supports multipart content to be loaded in different places in RAM, which some programs do use, even though SAVEM supports only saving one part. The cassette equivalents were called CLOADM and CSAVEM. In ColorBASIC, the BRUN command is called EXEC instead.

Video images

The BSAVED format is a device-dependent raster image format; the file header sometimes stores information about the display hardware address, and the size of the graphics data. The graphics data follows the header directly and is stored as raw data in the format of the native adapter's addressable memory. No additional information, such as screen resolution, color depth and palette information, bit planes and so on, is stored.

References

Microsoft BASIC Manual BSAVE Command

Microsoft BASIC Manual BLOAD Command

Commodore 128 Personal Computer System Guide Commodore Business Machines, Ltd. 1985

External links

How to Save Color Registers After BSAVE of (PICEM) Graphics

Complete Instructions to BLOAD and BSAVE EGA and VGA Screens

How to BLOAD/BSAVE Multiple Screen Pages for EGA Screens 7–10

The Commodore 128: The Most Versatile 8-Bit Computer Ever Made
{{Graphics file formats Articles with example BASIC code Articles with example C code Graphics file formats ASCII art BASIC commands

Origin

ColorBASIC

Video images

See also

References

External links